2011 seen as ‘turning point’ for home prices

MacroMarkets panelists expect little growth through 2015

More than half of economists, real estate experts and investment strategists polled by MacroMarkets LLC in Junesaid they now expect national home prices to hit a bottom sometime in 2011 and remain stable through 2015.

Panelists are asked to project the path of the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index over the coming five years. Robert Shiller is MacroMarkets’ chief economist and co-founder.

“A significant majority of our panelists believe that the bottom for home prices arrived in the first quarter or will arrive sometime before year-end. Despite persistent macroeconomic uncertainty and unprecedented housing market dysfunction, almost two-thirds of the panelists see the U.S. residential real estate market as at an historic turning point,” Shiller said in a statement.

The 69 panelists forecasting a 2011 bottom predict less than 2 percent average annual growth in prices through December 2015, he said.

“A 2 percent a year home-price increase will not inspire a lot of consumer confidence. Given prevailing inflation expectations, this forecast implies virtually no change in real home values going forward,” Shiller added.

The most optimistic quartile of panelists projected, on average, a 15.3 percent price increase from year-end 2010 through 2015, while the most pessimistic quartile of panelists projected, on average, a 6 percent price drop.

“This is a gut-wrenching time for market stakeholders and policymakers, because each of these scenarios is plausible.”

On average, panelists predicted a 3.52 percent drop in fourth-quarter 2011 compared to fourth-quarter 2010, followed by small increases every year through fourth-quarter 2015 when prices are expected to rise 3.47 percent on an annual basis.

All rights reserved. This content may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, in part or in whole, without written permission of Inman News. Use of this content without permission is a violation of federal copyright law.

In addition to knowing real estate, self-proclaimed marketing nerd and national speaker for realtor.com Kristi Kennelly knows a thing or two about capturing an audience — she was a Broadway performer in a previous career, after all ...

A Tampa Realtor who allegedly tried to stop Fannie Mae from foreclosing on a property so that he could sell it himself has been charged with bankruptcy fraud and falsification of records in a bankruptcy proceeding ...

The question now is when will the 10-year break through 3.00% going higher, putting that number “five” back into the mortgage vocabulary for the first sustained time since the Great Recession. Market consensus (of course, often wrong): “when,” not whether ...

In interviews with Florida real estate professionals, including at least one involved in the 2008 sale, agents characterized Trump’s blockbuster deal as simply par for the course in the years leading up to the financial collapse, when appreciation rates climbed at a historic clip and the housing market in Palm Beach and elsewhere in South Florida was like th […]

After a number of acquisitive brokerages have been circling San Diego in recent months, some key activity exploded this week. Broker-owner Kyle Whissel, whose independent firm Whissel Realty is the most productive brokerage in San Diego County according to Real Trends; and Dan Beer, leader of Keller Williams' no. 1 team in Southern California by gross c […]

A Realtor shares how she's harnessed the power of social media and human connection to create a loyal following for her down-to-earth, unintentionally comical video series, "The Carpool Chronicles." ...